A man swallowed a liter of top-shelf brand vodka rather than surrender it to airport personnel (who themselves would drink it after hours).

New regulations designed to obstruct terrorism (which the US has in fair part provoked) prohibit passengers from carrying quantities of liquid onto aircraft (Does that apply equally to first-class passengers?).

Informed at a security check that he would have to relinquish the vodka or pay a hefty fee to have his carry-on bag checked as cargo, the man chugged the liquor down on the spot, passed out, died.

Official cause of death: global nausea.

Undead

A 91-year-old male has been refused flight out of Liverpool’s John Lennon Airport because he was dead.

The old dead male, in a wheelchair, wearing sunglasses, was delivered to the gate by two middle-aged females.

Airport staff became suspicious while patting him down and noting his lack of body warmth.

Fat Flyers

Air France denied reports that it planned an additional charge for overweight passengers unable to fit into a single seat.

Instead, the national carrier said that from Feb 1, overweight passengers who chose to purchase an extra seat for comfort would get their money back on flights that were not fully booked.

Previously an airline spokesperson said grossly fat flyers will have to pay 75 percent of the cost of a second seat (the full price excluding tax and surcharges) on top of the full price for the first, insisting the decision was for "safety, not esthetic,” reasons.

Swallow

An al-Qaeda suicide bomber blew himself up while severely wounding a Saudi prince in Jeddah.

The bombing left people wondering how one of the most wanted al-Qaeda operatives in Saudi Arabia could get so close to the princely head of counter-terrorism to explode himself and mutilate the prince.

The answer is the explosive was inside the bomber’s body; he swallowed it.

Western forensic experts are profoundly worried that this deadly new tactic will influence other terrorists; if so, it will render traditional airport security metal detectors useless.

The best near-term option might be redoubling the emphasis on racial profiling.

Things to Do

Find work as a baggage handler for a major airliner.

Secretly rummage through lost or delayed luggage.

Collect female hair from brushes, combs, intimate wear.

Bag the hair in transparent plastic, label it.

Encode your fantasies of the hair-owner’s most intimate gestures on your smart phone.

Skinks

Feds apprehended a man who strapped 22 live lizards to his chest to get through customs at LAX.

The 39-year-old was returning from Australia when in a routine strip-down agents found four geckos, seven monitor lizards and 11 skinks fastened to his body.

The lizards' estimated value: $18,000.

Harold Jaffe is the author of 18 volumes of fiction, docufiction and nonfiction, including 15 Serial Killers; Straight Razor; Sex for the Millennium; Anti-Twitter: 150 50-Word Stories; Paris 60; and the forthcoming OD. Jaffe is editor of Fiction International.